In recent years, the use of electronic money has become widespread. In electronic money, amount information called value is related to money value and fund settlement is performed by increasing or decreasing the value balance.
FIG. 13 is a diagram for explaining an existing electronic money system.
A mobile terminal 5 is a mobile terminal owned by the user, and the balance of value, an IC module ID by which an IC module is identified, an electronic money number, and so forth are stored in an IC module incorporated into or attached to the mobile terminal 5. Moreover, there is also an electronic money card 100 having the IC module incorporated thereinto or attached thereto.
A method of holding value in a user s-side IC module in this manner is called a stored value type.
An asynchronous payment terminal 7 is installed in a store, an automatic vending machine, and so forth, and performs payment by value by reducing the value balance stored in the IC module by performing short-distance radio communication with the IC module of the mobile terminal 5 or the electronic money card 100.
The asynchronous payment terminal 7 completes the payment processing locally between the asynchronous payment terminal 7 and the IC module of the user without connecting to an electronic money server 2 and records the transaction history as log data.
Then, the asynchronous payment terminal 7 collectively sends the log data to the electronic money server 2 later at regular or irregular intervals.
The reason why the asynchronous payment terminal 7 is called “asynchronous” is that the asynchronous payment terminal completes payment processing locally without being synchronous with the electronic money server 2.
In such a system of stored value-type electronic money, since the value balance is stored in the IC module in advance and the value balance is reduced at the time of payment, if there is not enough value, it is impossible to perform payment. For this reason, processing called recharging that increases the balance of value stored in the IC module is required. This recharging is generally performed in exchange for money in a store and the exchange value of value is guaranteed.
On the other hand, in recent years, with an improvement in the communications capacity of the network, a server management-type system that manages value with the electronic money server 2 and performs payment processing on the server's side has also become known. It is expected that, with the improvement of a network infrastructure, such a server management-type system will become gradually widespread.
Such a kind of electronic money that manages value with the server will be referred to as server-type electronic money. In a system of this server-type electronic money, since value is not managed by an IC module, it is necessary to synchronize it with value managed by the electronic money server 2 at all times. Therefore, a payment terminal used is a synchronous-type payment terminal, not the asynchronous payment terminal 7.
In the system of server-type electronic money, as described in Patent Document 1, a mechanism in which, when the user holding a mobile terminal having the payment function using electronic money enters an area around a place where a payment terminal having the payment function using electronic money is installed, access is made to an electronic money server depending on the selection made by the user and the mobile terminal is recharged with electronic money has been known.
With such a mechanism, a situation in which payment becomes impossible due to a shortage of the balance is prevented.